Mitt Romney argues he is better equipped than President Barack Obama to fix
the sputtering economy as October jobs figures released.

7:51PM GMT 02 Nov 2012

The Republican presidential contender speaking in West Allis, Wisconsin said "real change is not measured in words; real change is measured in achievements" as he claimed President Obama had not delivered on his promises.

"Four years ago candidate Obama promised to do so very much but he's fallen so very short.

"He promised to be a post partisan President but he became the most partisan – blaming, attacking, dividing. He said he was going to focus on creating jobs.

"Instead he focused on ObamaCare which killed jobs. He said he was going to cut the federal deficit in half and then he doubled it. He said he was going to lower the unemployment rate down to 5.2 per cent right now. Today we learned that it's actually 7.9 per cent and that's nine million jobs short of what he promised. Unemployment is higher today than when Barack Obama took office.

"Think of that. Unemployment today is higher than on the day Barack Obama took office," Mr Romney said.

The Labor Department announced on Friday that employers added 171,000 people to their payrolls last month.

The jobless rate edged a tenth of a point higher from 7.8 per cent, but that was due to a surge of people back to the workforce, seen as a hopeful sign for a lacklustre economy.

Mr Romney's odds of victory fell – and Mr Obama's odds for re-election rose – on the Intrade prediction market after the jobs report. In early Friday action, traders saw a 32.5 per cent chance of Romney winning on Tuesday, down 4.4 per cent from Thursday's close.

They put the chances of an President Obama victory at 67.6 per cent, up 1.5 per cent from Thursday.